


Bi-Lingual

by Rubi_in_Rust



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Bilingual Character(s), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Crack, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Flirting, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Italian Pidge | Katie Holt, Language Barrier, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Poor Shiro has to watch, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Puns & Word Play, Samoan Hunk (Voltron), These Idiots, despacito, this is so sad rover play despacito
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 19:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubi_in_Rust/pseuds/Rubi_in_Rust
Summary: Lance teaches Keith how to flirt in Spanish as a joke, telling Keith the words are insults. It's all in fun and games until Lance realizes he's going to explode into a fiery mushroom cloud of unresolved sexual tension if Keith keeps talking dirty to him like that.





	Bi-Lingual

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a personal experience of mine where I taught my crush "insults" in Spanish and would have heart palpitations whenever he said I love you. God bless my BI...lingual heart ;)

Despite all speaking English or the equivalent, sometimes the paladins slip up and speak in their mother tongues. Shiro once said itadakimasu at dinner, Hunk speaks Samoan when he's in the kitchen crooning at a dish, Pidge swears at glitchy tech in Italian, and Lance sometimes forgets words in English and frantically shouts them in Spanish, as if that would let them understand it better. Hunk and Pidge had been living with Lance for the past 5 years so they had picked up on some Spanish and were able to translate, and he once saw Lance and Pidge speaking to each other in their first languages just to see how well they could understand each other. Keith couldn't help but be jealous. He could barely hold a conversation with Lance in English, Nevermind be close enough to use another language.

"Hey Pidge, teach me how to swear in Italian !" Lance plopped down next to where Pidge was working on the couch.

“Fuck you is a pretty universal term," she said distractedly.

“C’mon, we're the emissaries of earth, I should at least know more about my own planet’s culture.”

“And your idea of culture is swearing? Never change, Lance.” Pidge smirked.

“Fine, if you don't impart your wisdom I shall impart mine. Hey Keith! I'm gonna teach you Spanish.”

Keith looked up from the knife he was sharpening. It was an iridescent and looked hella gay so naturally he had to have it when he saw it in the alien market. He had an aesthetic he had long left neglected. “No thanks, Lance.”

“What better way to vent your anger at me than in my own language? It'll be good for you.”

Keith sighed and set down his knife. “Fine.”

“Perfect! Now what do you want to learn?”

“How about leave me alone?”

“Oooo good one Keith!” Hunk called from the kitchen. Pidge stood up.

“I'm not staying here for this, Ehi Lance, buona fortuna cercando di farlo amare." Lance huffed and folded his arms. “Vaffanculo,” he said. Then he got an idea. A terrible evil idea. A wonderful idea. This might just work.

“Aren't you supposed to be speaking Spanish? You’re not being a very good teacher.” Keith quipped.

“You’re right, I should say te quiero instead. Hey Hunk, te quiero!”

“Te quiero tambien,” Hunk said absentmindedly. 

“Oye, no digas nada a Keith, capisce?” Lance said. Hunk shrugged. “Esta bien.”

“Bueno. Keith?” Lance turned back to Keith.

“I heard you talking about me, what did you say.”

“What? I was talking in Spanish, how could be talking about you?

“I’m going to recognize my name in every language!”

“Relax dude, I was just telling him I'm about to teach you. So, lesson number one: ‘te quiero’ means fuck you. It's more of a casual fuck you though, so if you're really mad or you really hate the person, say ‘te amo’ instead.”

“Te amo" Keith says, feeling how the words taste in his mouth. “I get it, it's like ammo.”

Lance swallows a laugh and tries not to smile. “ Exactly. Lesson number two: insulting people. If you want to tell someone they're ugly, say ‘eres hermoso’.”  
“Eres hermoso," Keith repeats.

“Dang, your pronunciation is pretty good!” 

Keith smiles and rubs his head. “How do I say ‘you look stupid?’”

Lance grins. “Call em ‘guapo.’”

“Guapo, like bat poop?”

“What the fuck?”

"He means guano," Hunk butts in.

“I knew that!”

Keith chuckles “Sure you did... Guapo.”

Lance splutters. Keith grins, and scoots closer. This is a bonding moment! They're bonding over the language. Maybe one day he'll be brave enough to ask Lance to teach him compliments. “How do I tell someone I want to punch them?”

Lance thinks for a moment before saying “Quiero desnudarte a besos.”

“Say it again, slower.” Keith leans forward. Lance feels his heart rate quicken.

“Quiero desnudarte a besos.”

Keith repeats it but messes up on desnudarte.

“ Des nu dar te,” Lance sounds out each syllable. He tries not to think about how close Keith is. His eyes are so big. Like someone threw a galaxy into his soul and it was pouring out the his ridiculously huge eyes.

“ Quiero desnudarte" Keith furrows his eyebrows and watches Lance’s lips carefully. For educational purposes. Not because he likes Lance’s voice, or how it.sounds speaking smooth Spanish, even if it is an insult. “This has quiero in it, I know that word!”

Lance smiles “ Yeah buddy, you're picking up quick. Let's go over what we've learned.”

“‘Te quiero’ or ‘te amo’ means fuck you.” 

Lance brings his first up to his mouth and nods.

“Uhh, guapo means idiot… And ‘quiero desnudarte a besos’ is how to pick a fight?” 

Lance gives as a high pitched mhmm. Hunk is gripping the counter. Keith feels proud that he impressed them this much.

“I better hit the training deck, but I'll see you around, and te quiero!” he grabs his knife and slips out, smiling quietly to himself. Wow. Despite it being a conversation teaching him how to insult, that was one of the first conversations he had with Lance without throwing insults. 

Hunk and Lance wait until Keith’s footsteps disappear before bursting into laughter.

“Dude, I hope you know what you're doing.”

“What? Can't a guy okay a harmless prank? Just don't tell Allura or Pidge.”

“I can't wait til he decides to use them oh my god.”

 

The eventful day where the prank pulled off came up a few days later when they were sparring. 

“Think you can finally beat me, Mullet?” 

“Quiero desnudarte a besos, Lance!!”

Shiro, who was minding his business drinking a water pouch, sprayed water everywhere. “Keith!!” He cried. Lance was turning red, Keith assumed from anger. Keith smirked and attacked while he was stunned. He quickly disarmed Lance and took him to the ground, holding his arm behind his back.

“Betcha didn't see that coming, guapo,”

Lance croaked. Shiro squeezed his pouch so hard it exploded.

“You win,” Lance grumbled, hiding his face in the floor. Keith relinquished his hold and walked away. Shiro grabbed his arm.

“What the hell was that?”

“Just giving him a taste of his own medicine.”

“What kind of medicine has he been giving you???”

Keith chuckled and grabbed a water pouch, oblivious to Lance rolling on the floor covering his face.  
“I want a rematch!” Lance yelled.

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith waved him away. Shiro gripped Keith's arm tighter.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said before walking towards the exit, shaking his head. He was gonna have to ask Allura if the Alteans had any methods of safe sex lying around, and that was not a conversation he wanted to be having any time soon. He didn't deserve this, his years of being a camp counselor were supposed to be over. He wasn't the only one who wasn't having a good time.

Lance burst into the kitchen to find Hunk, who was humming while he mixed his magic into the food goo. 

“HUNK. WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA.”

Hunk screamed and spilled the bowl onto himself. “Jesus Christ, Lance!”

“YOU’RE RIGHT, I NEED JESUS WITH HOW KEITH LOOKED AT ME TODAY WHEN HE TOLD ME HE WANTED TO KISS MY CLOTHES OFF!! I AM SHOOK. WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING THIS IS NOT FUNNY I'M HAVING A SEXUAL CRISIS”

“I told you this wasn't a good deal buddy,” Hunk said as he bent over, clutching his stomach  
Lance threw himself onto Hunk in melodramatic agony. He recoiled once he realized Hunk had spilled all over himself. “Ew now I'm covered in goo! What is this anyway?” he scooped up some with a finger. 

“It's flan,” said Hunk. Lance’s eyes widened. 

“Bro,” he said reverently. He tasted his finger and closed his eyes in bliss.

“Bro.”

“Dude, I love you so much, you're the best, you know that, right?”

Hunk ruffled his friends hair. “I know. I’ve been working on the recipe for a while. I know how much you love it.” They happily scooped up more goo as they leaned on each other.

“What am I gonna do about Keith? Pidge hasn't even been in the room when he comes onto me, of she's not there then what's the point?” 

“I think it's pretty funny. I should teach him more.”

“No don't, he's going to literally give me a stroke."

“At least now he’s flirting with you?”

“But how long can I lie to to myself pretending that he'd be interested?”

“How do you know he's not?”

“Because he's Keith! He’s the best, both as a pilot pilot and fighter, I'm never gonna be good enough for him.”

“Oh Lance, you adorable insecure beaver, Keith isn't better than you, and you know it.”

“Don't call me beaver, I haven't had buck teeth in forever.”

“You never had buck teeth, you just make emotional and mental dams to suppress your emotions and are super cuddly.”

“How would you know a beaver is cuddly, have you hugged a beaver before?” Lance joked. Hunk gave him a Look.

“Lance, you gotta tell him.”

“Nahhhh, I think I'll just get over it. Thanks though, bud. You always are looking out for me.” Lance pushed away, flicking the last of the flan off him.  
Hunk sighed as Lance walked away, then returned to mixing up more goo flan.

Keith walked in a second later. “Why was Lance covered in -- oh."

“ Kitchen disaster. I was making his favorite Cuban food.”

“ Really? What is it?”

“Flan. Although his real favorite Cuban food is probably ropa vieja, but those are his Abuela’s thing and I could never hope to compare to her.”

“Lance really misses his home, doesn’t he.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty close with his family, You know how Latinos are.”

“Huh? I don’t really know.”

“Oh, well in a lot of Latino cultures the whole family lives together.”

“See I didn't know any of that.”

“I could teach you some more so that you could impress Lance!” Hunk waggles his eyebrows.

“Whaaat I don't know why, why would I want to impress Lance?” Keith stutters.

“Don’t you think it would be cool to let Lance feel more at home?”  
Keith crosses his arms and grumbles. “Fine, tell me what you got.”

“Great! I’ll teach you more phrases”

10 minutes later they’re on the couch with makeshift space note cards that are actually holograms in front of them. Hunk would say a phrase or word and Keith would repeat it back.

"Despacito"

" Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito "

"Deja que te diga cosas al oído "

"Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo"

Hunk was loving this. He called dibs on telling this story at their wedding.

 

Keith had an opportunity to use his vocabulary which he had stayed up late practicing only the next day. They were attacked by Galra fighters, and Keith shouted  
“QUIERO DESNUDARTE A BESOS DESPACITO" and laid into them with all he had. Everyone froze for a moment, before Allura gasped, Lance crashes into a stray Galra fighter, and Pidge screamed out a laugh. The team took slightly longer than usual to clean up the fighters, and when they regrouped in the castle they all had some words to say.

Allura and Coran speak the universal tongue, and Shiro took 5 years of Spanish, so everyone knew exactly what he said. Even the poor Galra that met their end at his hands.

“Is this…seduction of enemies normal in Earth culture?” asked Allura.

“Not unless this was a DnD campaign. I didn't know Keith even spoke Spanish” said Shiro. Pidge walked by snickering and Hunk shook his head. Keith followed soon after with a skip in his step.

“Hey Keith?” Shiro called out.

“Yeah?”

“Can we talk to you for a second?”

“Sure, whats up?”

“How come you hit on that Galra guard?”

“What? I wasn't hitting on him. I literally told him I was gonna fight him"

“No, you were hitting on him. You literally said I'm going to kiss your clothes off, my love”

Realization dawns on Keith’s face. “Dammit, Lance.”

“Why was Lance teaching you how to flirt in such an overt manner?” Coran asked.

“Probably as a prank. And I thought we were really bonding...”

“That's a pretty intimate prank to pull,” Allura commented.

A light bulb went off in Keith’s head. “Do you think he might like me?”

Coran and Allura looked at each other in exasperation. “He taught you how to flirt! What else could that mean?”

Keith grins ear to ear. “He's gonna regret he ever did that.. He doesn’t know what he’s got coming for him, I’m going to flirt with him so hard he’ll combust.”  
Keith ran off.

"Wait, no that's not the point, Keith!And he's gone." Shiro shook his head.

"So..." Coran said. "Do humans really have the power to kiss someone's clothes off?"

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a comment and let me know what you think!  
> hit me up on tumblr if you have any ideas of what I should write or something: mynameismeowmeow.tumblr.com
> 
> Translations!  
> Ehi Lance, buona fortuna cercando di farlo amare: Hey Lance, good luck making him love you  
> Vancuffulo: fuck/ shit  
> Oye, no digas nada: hey, don't say anything  
> Esta bien: it's fine  
> Te quiero: I love you  
> guapo: handsome/ hot  
> eres hermoso: you're beautiful
> 
> Despacito: slowly  
> Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito: I want to breathe in your neck slowly  
> Deja que te diga cosas al oído: let me whisper sweet nothings in your ear  
> Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo: so you don't remember anything other than being with me


End file.
